Ride Your Bike to Energy Independence

Hiroshima Crosswalk by Daniel Hoye on Flickr

Today is ride your bike to work day. I work from home, but I wanted to ride my bike, so I decided to co-work at my friend Patrick's place downtown. According to my bike's odometer, Patrick lives about 13 miles from my place.

The ride was intense. I never feel very safe riding with cars, and some of the city's bike lanes are in terrible shape. That said, I get a certain pleasure out of riding my bike from point A to point B that makes up for any inconveniences along the way. It's probably just a feeling of self-righteousness.

By the end of the day, I'll have ridden at least 25 miles. In today's world of $4 gas, my trip would cost a little over $4.30 in our Volvo, and around $2.50 in our new Prius. My bike ride cost me a little extra time and a few extra cupcake calories that I ate yesterday. I don't begrudge losing either.

Time on a bike, riding over the contours of the Earth with wind on your face, is time well spent—especially when it's taking you somewhere you want to go. Commuting (or running errands, or visiting a friend, or going to dinner, etc) on a bike is better than arbitrarily running around (i.e. jogging) to get rid of excess calories.

Energy Independence

This election year, we're going to hear a lot from our current and hopeful lawmakers about energy diversity and energy independence. Many of them will talk about finding alternative fuel sources. The cynic in me can’t help wondering how many perks our lawmakers get from nuclear energy lobbies or the ethanol lobby, or any other energy firms.

For instance, Texas’s Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison recently wrote a great op-ed about ethanol's shortcomings and recommended that we "accelerate production of all forms of domestic energy." She recommends that we tap into Alaskan oil reserves as well as "clean coal, nuclear power and wave energy." Her advice seems prudent, but she fails to mention one of the most tremendous energy reserves in world: the extra fat most of us are carrying on our waistlines.

The reason so few lawmakers encourage biking or walking is due to a collective action problem. There are only a few firms who know how to make money off of a particular kind of energy, and they all stand to benefit tremendously from making friends on Capitol Hill. It's easy for these few people to recognize the benefit of joining forces to lobby politicians (e.g. $14.5 billion in tax breaks).

Meanwhile, it would be very difficult to assemble everyone who would like to be able to walk to the store or ride their bike to work. What's more, while it would be nice to be able to walk to work, dealing with a commute and taking a hit at the gas pump is easier than bugging my representatives. I mean, it's not like I can afford to buy them off.

Sadly, until the walking shoe or bicycle lobbies get their act together, we’re on our own. According to Geoffry Stlyes, the fact is that…

If we all drove just 12 miles less per week, fuel demand would fall by 5%, the equivalent of almost half a million barrels per day, or all the ethanol produced last year. The impact of that on gas prices would be much more dramatic than waiting for someone else to fix the problem.

That’s if we just cut out 12 miles of driving a week. For many of us that’s telecommuting, walking, or biking once or twice a week.

I would like to hear some lawmakers talk about rewarding developers who build walkable and bike friendly communities. I wish more companies encouraged telecommuting or living closer to work (Facebook pays a $600 rent stipend to every employee who lives within a mile of their offices). As Michael Pollan just said, it would be really nice if we encouraged more people to fuel their legs with food from their own gardens, kind of like the Victory Garden efforts of WWI and WWII—we could call them Freedom (from foreign oil) Gardens.